Post navigation

Scene-Snippet Sunday, Winners, & Pre-Order Special

It feels odd to be sitting at the computer after most of the last three days spent in bed. I have watched every old “Project Runway” show ever recorded, I think! The pneumonia isn’t gone. I’m still wheezing and coughing and feel as if I’ve been over by a Mack truck, but I’m better. So thanks for all your well-wishes.

In the meantime, a quick reminder that I have a $50 giveaway for preordering PIRATESHIP DOWN (which costs $2.99). Currently, you can find it here for Kindle.

The print version will be up around Oct. 29, still in time to preorder. Save your proof of purchase receipt; I’ll only need it if good old Rafflecopter picks you as the winner.

Now, did you win a book this week? Contact me via the Contact tab on this page if you see your name. Winners Choice winners can be choice of print or digital if in the US; print outside the U.S. TBR mystery books are all print. Be sure and mention what you won so I don’t have to go look it up.

VAMPEDCHIK won the TBR giveaway this week for admitting she finds Juice Jam a time-suck 🙂

Good ole random.org picked MARY PRESTON for this week’s Readers Choice; she chose The King’s Justice: Two Novellas by Stephen R. Donaldson.

And now, a snippet from PIRATESHIP DOWN. This is not a snippet from the title novella but from the story “Rivalry,” which is written from Alex Warin’s point of view and it’s set when he is 15 years old and Jake is 17. They’ve just gotten in trouble for fighting at school (which Jake started). I like this story, because I think it explains a lot about Alex and why he is such a control freak. It’s because there was a time in his life, about the time this story occurs, when he had no control at all.

An hour later, Jake and I had our sorry mud-covered butts handed to us by not only the coach but also our dads, who’d closed down Picayune Hardware for the express purpose of marching to the high school in a united front against their wayward sons.

Tom and Eddie Warin were probably a preview of where Jake and I would end up, Dad tall and broad but mild-tempered, Uncle Eddie shorter and slimmer but hard as a rock. Jake had that banty rooster mentality and wouldn’t back down to save his own hide. I considered myself a little more practical, at least until lately.

Lately, I considered myself a freak.

Now I was probably going to be a grounded freak.

Except for an “Alex, yore mama ain’t gonna be happy about this,” Dad didn’t have much to say on the way home. He didn’t need to. Mom made up for whatever toughness Dad lacked. She grounded me for two weeks and―worse―subjected me to the I’m-so-disappointed-in-you guilt-trip that might normally have brought me to tears, at least when nobody was looking.

I couldn’t think about her disappointment, though, or about the ongoing feud with Jake that, by family accounts, began when he knocked me down with a Tonka truck at age four and I, age two, fought back.

Now I was fifteen, with bigger problems. The birds and bees talk I’d gotten from my mortified dad had included lots of halting statements about puberty and hormones and morning hard-ons and the great mystery of girls. I already knew about all that crap from having older brothers.

He didn’t tell me a damn thing about healing fast, or being strong, or why I was always hot, or―and here was the real kicker―how I could turn into a dog. And once Jake opened his big fat mouth, the shit would hit the fan.

Poor Alex. And there you have it; come back tomorrow for a new Readers Choice giveaway!

About Suzanne Johnson

Author of urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and suspense. As Suzanne Johnson, she is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series (Royal Street; River Road: Elysian Fields, Pirate's Alley, Belle Chasse, Frenchmen Street (March 2018). Writing as Susannah Sandlin, she is the author of the Penton Legacy series (Redemption; Absolution; Omega; Storm Force; Allegiance; ILLUMINATION); The Collectors series (Lovely, Dark, and Deep; Deadly, Calm, and Cold); and the Wilds of the Bayou series (Wild Man's Curse; Black Diamond).